Wednesday, May 10, 2006

One Happy Family

W. Mark has been telling us to "follow the money" for a long time. So we decided to listen to the old coot.

20thsenatorial has uncovered some very interesting tidbits from the PA Department of State's website. Financial reports can be obtained on any political action committee or candidate committee back to 1998. You can also search individual contributors. See DOS site.

Back Mountain Recreation, Inc. (BMR) is a charitable, non-profit corporation dedicated to the conservation of open space and the development of recreational facilities in the Back Mountain region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. This may be its stated purpose, but apparently the board of the BMR's purpose is to elect Lisa Baker to the State Senate. Over the last six months, five of the ten board members gave a total of $3225 to Baker for Senate. This does not include the $1000 contribution from Board Member Richard Allan to the Northeast PA Leadership Fund, which was subsequently funneled into Baker for Senate. Interesting coincidence or not?

Brian Grove, campaign manager for Baker is still listed as the Executive Director of the organization on their website, although he is currently a project management consultant, earning a salary of $4,000 a month. In fiscal year 2005 (7/1/04-6/30/05,) Grove was paid $53,016 according to the organization's 2005 Form 990. (This is not his annual salary due to an unpaid leave of absence to work for Bush/Cheney. In fiscal 2004, Grove received $69,204 from BMR. )

The Northeast PA Leadership Fund is currently registered with the Department of State as a political action committee at 22 Kimberly Drive, Dallas. Coincidently, that is the residence of BMR board member and Baker contributor, Richard Allan. Prior to 2006, the Northeast PA Leadership Fund was registered at 230 Lane Hill Road, Tunkhannock, PA, the residence of Baker campaign manager Brian Grove. Baker tells us he was the founding Treasurer of the Northeast PA Leadership Fund.

Now it all makes sense. If you need a flow chart to figure all of this out, send $5.95 plus tax to 20thsenatorial at PO Box 1234, Clifton, New Jersey 07890. Add an additional $2.95 for overseas shipping.

I checked out Lisa Baker's report and half of the district contributed to her - gotta love that first ammendment. Tried to check out Haggerty's and Bigus's but they are not there there! Now let's check out contributions from attorneys to Haggerty's campaign. What's with the Citizen's for Justice for All - I heard they had a fundraiser for him as he agreed to not touch tort reform (I thought this was a republican nomination! Phyllis' apron strings need to be snipped) Most attending were Democratic attorneys from LACKAWANA county. I say YES follow the money for all the candidates!

To Anonymous 9:10 pm, the district has approximately 250,000 people. To our knowledge, Baker had at most a couple hundred contributors. That's a little bit less than half the district. But who's to quibble over a hundred thousand people.

I, too, would like to know more about the provenance of the Northeast PA Leadership Fund. I don't know much about Richard J. Allan, but while the Fund is registered at his address, it seems to me that it is the plaything of much wealthier people than he. The most recent example is readily apparent in the Fund's first campaign finance report for 2008: none other than Andrew Sordoni III loans the Fund the prodigious sum of $19,000, and in the same reporting period, the Fund loans $19,000 to the retention campaign of the racist judge Correale Stevens (infamous for backing Hazleton brownshirt gauleiter Lou Barletta's theory that local government should enforce immigration law). Browse earlier years and you will not only see Andrew Sordoni contributing more money to the Northeast PA Leadership Fund, but you'll also see the PAC of Commonwealth Telephone, which was also an enterprise controlled by the Sordonis.

There are other wealthy folks who support this Northeast PA Leadership Fund, but it looks to me to be very closely associated with the Sordonis. Or perhaps it is a way for all sorts of rich people to loan money or give money to campaigns without their names being directly associated with the donations, for whatever purpose that might serve. Does anyone know?